Chris walked up to me keeping his head down.
“You ok?” I asked as he stopped in front of me knowing something was wrong.
“Yeah I'm ok.” He replied a without any emotion in his voice apart from emptiness “It was hard you know, leaving family like that, really hard.”
“Yeah I know... I know...” it was true, it was hard to leave family like we had done.
We walked for a bit up the road in silence and as a red Fiat drove past I wondered what they must have thought of us, two teens both walking down the road at 4am with hiking bags. Chris had only just bought his, he had bought it yesterday because the only other thing he had was his school backpack which could hold almost nothing, and he wanted to actually bring some spare clothes.
“How did your letter go?” Chris asked nervously
“It was ok I guess, I mean I told them I loved them and I will miss them.” I paused “What did you tell them?” I really wasn’t sure what he would say and I was worried he told them about the whole shape shifter thing and if he did this would make everything a lot more complicated.
“I told them I'm running away, I love them, and not to worry. Said I'm going to travel, live life as a free man, no school, no job, just... survival I guess.”
“So you didn’t tell them about being a shape shifter?” I said slowly
“Do you think I'm that stupid Tilyer?” he said sarcastically
“You could be” I laughed, Chris gave me a serious look before he too burst into laughter.
As we entered the woods I slowed down to try and shift my eyes, since I couldn’t see a thing as a human and there were no lights in the woods, I thought it would be a good idea to take advantage of my wolf side, good thing wolves could see in the dark.
“What you doing?” Chris asked as I closed my eyes and stopped in my tracks.
“I'm shifting my eyes.” I replied with my eyes closed as I felt them swirling into their wolf form.
When I opened my eyes I could see as if it was day time. It was amazing; I loved the advantage I had over the night now.
Chris looked at me and slowly took out a torch from his bag and turned it on.
“You know there are these wonderful things called torches for those who cannot shift as easily as you can.” He said half heartedly as he looked into my eyes.
“Don’t worry, one day you will shift as easily as I can now and after that even better.”
“I hope so.” From the sound of his voice it was clear he didn’t have too much faith in himself, he had only shifted 4 times, and only two of those were on purpose and that was on Friday when I had insisted on training him, it had taken him over half an hour each time to shift and had only stayed as a wolf for 15-25mins.He had first shifted involuntarily because I had tackled him, his latest shift was when he had pinned Alex to the ground, he had stayed a wolf for about 30mins, which wasn’t bad but I had decided to teach him to hunt and this meant he had shifted back as we were hunting, and rather dangerously as well since we were sprinting full pelt as the change happened. He had blacked out in mid sprint and fell into the river which we were running alongside of, I was just grateful he hadn’t hurt himself.
I shifted my eyes back and got out my own torch to not make him feel so left out, I hated being left out, so the least I could do for him was put myself in the same position.
“How far is the den again?” he was pretty unsure about all of this and I knew he hadn’t liked the idea to start but I hope he would get to grips with it soon and move on with life, I know it sounds harsh but what else is there to say or do.
“Not far.” I replied “Just don’t fall asleep; you can sleep on the plane.” I said jokily as he yawned.
We walked in silence for the rest of the way.
“Here we are.” I said as we got to the den, I took my hiking bag off and threw it in before then crawling in, once in I made myself comfortable and hung the torch from the roof beam in order to actually see before the sun comes up which would be pretty soon actually, I knew the sun rose at around quarter to five in beginning of June.
It had taken me ages to build this and I was kind of sad to leave the 4 pairs of deer antlers I had in here, I would miss my trophies, in fact, I was really proud of them, single handily taking down deer as a wolf isn’t the easiest thing on earth either.
Chris threw his bag in and crawled in just after, the bag landed right next to me.
“Are you trying to kill me?” I smiled at him laughing slightly.
“Ha-ha no, sorry.” He smiled back.
I sat up and looked at my watch. 4:25am, meaning we still had about 35minutes before Matt would come and pick us up to take us to the airport, I still had no idea if we were going on a private plane or a public one, but I guess it would be easier to get on a public one.
A familiar tune started playing, the beginning of Loaded and Alone by Hinder.
“Dude... is that your phone?” Chris asked confused.
Suddenly I remembered I had put my phone back in my pocket but had never left it at my house, I never left my house without my phone, I guess it was like a bad habit.
“Oh my gosh it is.” I was pretty shocked actually; I quickly put my hand in my pocket to retrieve my phone.
Caller ID: Matt
I quickly picked up and put it on loudspeaker.
“Hello.” I said in a hurry.
“Tilyer, are you with Chris? And are you in the den?” Matt was talking quickly and seemed too serious to be considered as a random check up like he would do on any other day.
“Yes, and yes, now what’s wrong?” I was worried, something had to be wrong.
“Listen up Tilyer, you have company, and whether you like it or not, they are shape shifters, watch yourselves, I will be there at 5ish please be careful.” The sound of cars honking their horns at him could be heard, I was pretty sure he was speeding in whatever car he was driving.
“Ok, who are they?” I didn’t know why I asked, since I thought I already knew.
“Three idiots, now be careful, especially the bear.” And with that the conversation ended.
Matt hung up so I put my phone away in my bag and looked at Chris, “What did he mean when he said a bear?”
“One of those 3 shape shifters is a bear.” I said as I took off my jacket and hoodie.
“What are you doing? And what shape shifters?” his voice was filled with worry, surprise and confusion.
“I'm getting ready for a fight, because the 3 shape shifters are Mark, Joe, and Jack.” I said stuffing my hoodie into my bag and tying my jacket to one of the shoulder straps.
“You are joking right? This is joke isn’t it, it’s a test, well guess what, I'm not falling for it.” Chris shouted almost sure I was lying to him.
“I'm not joking Chris, this is real.”
“NO IT ISNT!” he shouted back at me furiously as his face started to go red with anger.
I stared into his eyes as hard as I could, trying to prove to him I wasn’t joking about this and at that exact moment two howls could be heard outside the den, probably only 100 meters away or so.
“Believe me now.” I said as I took off my shirt and put it on my hiking bag, I was pretty annoyed by now he still didn’t trust everything I said to him.
“What the heck are you doing Tilyer?” Chris asked rather confused.
“I'm getting ready to fight, because that’s what they want, now you do the same, you’d better shift.”
“No, I'm not fighting.” Chris said as he crossed his arms and leaned back.
I leaned over, grabbed his shirt and pulled him closer and then slapped him in the face, “Oh yes you will, staying as a human will only make you more venerable.”
“Don’t piss me off Tilyer.”
“Oh, I'm pissing you off am I. GOOD.” I said frustrated and filled with anger and I slapped him again.
“TILYER.” He shouted and then whimpered as he jerked back.
“No angry enough... Chris listen, make yourself shift.” I felt sorry for him; this wasn’t going to be nice in any way at all, and the first 5 shifts or so were the most painful ones, and from then on the pain eased away.
Chris closed his eyes firmly and whispered to himself “I am a wolf.” He said quietly to himself as he back once more and let out a sharp whimper of pain. I couldn’t say anything, I didn’t want him to lose concentration, and I knew I couldn’t say anything to make it better so I simply sat in silence hoping he would shift soon and the pain would be over.
After a few moments of watching him struggle and jerk back and forth he finally did it, I could see him change, it was... horrific, nothing like what I shifted like, I knew the first few times were painful and were slow but this was really bad, it was like he had almost no self control and pushing himself to shift was the hardest thing he had ever done, probably because he didn’t want to right now but had no choice.
“Once you get better it was almost instant and there will be no pain, I promise.” I told him as he started to shift.
Once he had shifted he started to kick off his jeans and his shirt, it was slightly amusing to see him wrestle against his shirt over his ears.
“Right, now go outside and make sure no one is coming.” I said seriously putting aside his wrestling match with his clothes.
The light grey wolf with deep brown eyes nodded and turned around to run outside.
I undid my belt and shifted within seconds. It was helpful that I was alone and it was quiet, it meant I could shift almost instantly, the most helpful thing was how much I had practised since I found out I could shape shift.
Once in my wolf form I jogged outside where Chris was standing.
I padded up to him and nodded, he nodded back and we kept a look out. Suddenly two dark shadows ran between the trees in front of us, and another bigger one behind us, it didn’t take a genius to work out that they were Mark, Jack, and Joe.
We had company and the fight was about to begin.